Bullied at school and ignored and abused at home by his indifferent mother and older brother, Billy Casper, a 15-year-old working-class Yorkshire boy, tames and trains his pet kestrel falcon whom he names Kes. Helped and encouraged by his English teacher and his fellow students, Billy finally finds a positive purpose to his unhappy existence—until tragedy strikes.
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Reviews
when I watch this film it's sit on my chest and never go. It is true classic. Football scene, the teacher beating students in classroom scene was unique. it is in three best films that I've ever seen. 1. fiddler on the roof, 2. kes, 3. Ah güzel istanbul. and I have to say again Ken Loach is Dickens in cinema.
I remember when we first got a video in the early 80s and we'd only just worked out how to use it. One night Kes came on the telly and me and my brother taped it. We were about 9 and 11 years old. We watched that tape for years over and over again. We knew the whole film word for word from start to finish. My mum and dad are both from Barnsley, My dad went to school with Barry Hines. Eventually that tape either got lost or broken. Years later when I was grown up, Kes came on the telly one night so I sat down to watch it. I couldn't believe it when it came on, it had been dubbed over, the voices were different and the accents were nothing like as strong as the original. In the end I had to turn it off. I was gutted. Since then I have borrowed it on Video and then bought it on DVD and both times on the video and the DVD it is the dubbed version. You can not get the original anywhere anymore but nobody ever mentions this and I really don't understand it because it spoils the whole film. Surely there is somebody out there what remembers the original and realises that the DVD version has different voices put on. In some places it is the same but in most places it has been dubbed and it sounds awful. I just wish I could find the original version somewhere. I know that most people reading this will think that their DVD is the original version and wont have a clue what I am talking about because for some reason nobody apart from me and my brother seem to have noticed which I find hard to believe. If you own the film on DVD then I assure you it is NOT the original voices.
This film is from the book "Kes - A Kestrel for A Knave" by Barry Hines.Do you remember any of the books you had to read at school as "compulsory reading"? To me this film should be compulsory viewing for all English schoolkids. This is how it was. I love the football scenes. As you may know Brian Glover was a professional wrestler, but his portrayal of the gym teacher is stunning. My gym teacher was Bev Risman, who was fullback/goalkicker for Leeds RLFC, and they could have taken Glover's role from him..Although a dark, grim film, this brings back many childhood memories for me.. including being caned for smoking.. a Players No. 6 I had stolen from my dad..They just don't make films like this anymore.. Billy Elliot and Brassed Off get close.. but Kes is my favourite film of all time..Stewart (The Yorkshireman, and proud of it) Shepherd
Most film-makers who deal with a story featuring a boy/girl and his/her pet go for the heartstrings by underlining both the kid's and the animal's cuteness. The narrative structure holding this picturesque idyll together mainly consists of predictable melodramatic incidents that endanger this relationship.One of Loach's best pics undermines this soapy approach by intensifying the unaffectedly portrayed boy-pet relationship through the unflinchingly bleak description of the boy's surroundings. Kes is not just a beloved falcon, he represents a way to endure social hardships.This earnest, heartfelt drama is a true gem of British working-class cinema.8 out of 10 funny football matches
